So, the Proteas Women were knocked out of the World Cup, comprehensively beaten by England in their semi-final.
Still, I think it was a brave run and there were individual performances to take heart from, like Laura Wolvaardt leading the run-scoring chart and Shabnim Ismail second on the wicket-taking list at the time of writing.
As stand-in captain Sune Luus said later, the team should not define itself on the strength (weakness?) of one game, even as she admitted they had let themselves down, with no fewer than five dropped catches in the match.
However, we’ve forgiven the men’s team for worse in the past, including blundering simple calculations in the 2003 World Cup, and therefore should not look too harshly at the women.
Speaking of harsh looks, I suspect (as many others do) it was his wife Jada’s unimpressed grimace that spurred Will Smith on to his Oscars meltdown. After all, he did laugh, along with the rest of the auditorium, when Chris Rock made a joke about her hair condition.
If all actors reacted the same way, Ricky Gervais’s face would be puce by now from all the slaps he would have received.
No, methinks there’s a lot more going on in Smith’s head behind the scenes (see the Insider).
Of course it’s not the first time a man has gone to bat to defend his lady’s honour: two Australian cricketers ‒ Glenn McGrath and David Warner ‒ (in)famously losing their kit on the field when their wives were insulted by opposition players.